A Critical Review of Habit Learning and the Basal Ganglia

Brian J Spiering,Carol A Seger

doi:10.3389/fnsys.2011.00066

Abstract

The current paper briefly outlines the historical development of the concept of habit learning and discusses its relationship to the basal ganglia. Habit learning has been studied in many different fields of neuroscience using different species, tasks, and methodologies, and as a result it has taken on a wide range of definitions from these various perspectives. We identify five common but not universal, definitional features of habit learning: that it is inflexible, slow or incremental, unconscious, automatic, and insensitive to reinforcer devaluation. We critically evaluate for each of these how it has been defined, its utility for research in both humans and non-human animals, and the evidence that it serves as an accurate description of basal ganglia function. In conclusion, we propose a multi-faceted approach to habit learning and its relationship to the basal ganglia, emphasizing the need for formal definitions that will provide directions for future research.

Highlights

The concept of habit learning has developed through the fruitful interaction of researchers in several intellectual domains, including animal learning, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, and behavioral neuroscience
We will revisit the defining features of habit learning and assess how well they characterize learning in the basal ganglia
Historical evolution of the habit learning concept The term habit was used, but not explicitly defined, by William James in the seminal Principles of Psychology (James, 1890). It was used on occasion by early researchers studying animal learning, in particular Hull (1934a,b) and Lashley (1930, 1950).“Habit”roughly corresponded to the resulting motor behavior (e.g., Lashley referred to the “maze running habit”), and habit learning to acquisition of these behaviors in an instrumental learning context

Summary

SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCE

The current paper briefly outlines the historical development of the concept of habit learning and discusses its relationship to the basal ganglia. Habit learning has been studied in many different fields of neuroscience using different species, tasks, and methodologies, and as a result it has taken on a wide range of definitions from these various perspectives. But not universal, definitional features of habit learning: that it is inflexible, slow or incremental, unconscious, automatic, and insensitive to reinforcer devaluation. We critically evaluate for each of these how it has been defined, its utility for research in both humans and non-human animals, and the evidence that it serves as an accurate description of basal ganglia function. We propose a multi-faceted approach to habit learning and its relationship to the basal ganglia, emphasizing the need for formal definitions that will provide directions for future research

Introduction

Seger and Spiering

Conclusion

Learning asymptote